Cotswold District Council

The meeting focused on accepting Siddington Parish Council’s Reg 15 neighbourhood plan submission and authorising a CDC-led Reg 16 public consultation. The discussion confirmed the submission met statutory requirements, noted the need for a full strategic environmental assessment, and identified only minor associated costs for printing hard copies and site notices. The consultation is scheduled to run from 13 July to 23 August 2026 to avoid overlapping with the emerging local plan consultation.

The meeting focused on progressing three neighbourhood plans: Moreton-in-Marsh, Cirencester and Chipping Campden. For the first two, the Council agreed responses to Reg 16 consultations and authorised procurement of an independent examiner by bid process. For Chipping Campden, the Council considered the examiner’s recommended modifications, accepted most changes, rejected part of one heritage asset amendment, and approved moving to referendum within 56 days. The discussion also covered local green space designations, policy wording clarity, and alignment with the emerging local plan.

The meeting focused heavily on financial outturn, reserve allocations, and service pressures across UBICO, parking, planning, and enforcement. Members discussed significant additional parking and planning fee income, rising UBICO costs driven by fuel, agency staff and forecasting issues, and the use of surplus funding for car park ticket machines, the LGR reserve and capacity building. A major part of the meeting was devoted to planning enforcement, where members raised concerns about backlog, staffing shortages, ICT/process weaknesses, member communications, and the proposal to fund a new expert lead role to improve service performance.

The meeting dealt with one discretionary council tax discount decision and a set of discretionary business rate relief applications. A full Section 13A council tax discount was approved for a financially vulnerable former resident with arrears of £632.98 remaining. The committee then moved to exclude the public for confidential consideration of three new and 13 renewal discretionary rate relief applications from local organisations and charities.

The meeting focused on two discretionary relief decisions: a Section 13A Council Tax discount for an individual resident with financial hardship and health-related vulnerability, and a Part 2 exemption for consideration of three new and 13 renewal applications for discretionary business rate relief. The only quantified spend-related item was the council tax arrears balance, while the rate relief cases were treated as confidential and listed by applicant name before the public was excluded.

The meeting focused on CDC’s response to the Siddington Neighbourhood Plan Regulation 14 consultation. Officers reviewed and agreed a set of supportive comments to help the parish revise the draft plan, with emphasis on settlement boundary wording, housing mix, design, heritage, green spaces, trees/hedgerows, flooding, sustainable transport routes and community facilities. No direct procurement decisions were made, but the plan’s transport, flood and heritage policies may influence future development-related commissioning and infrastructure requirements.